of central government The reigns of John II Casimir Vasa, Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki and John III Sobieski brought further downgrading and loss of effectiveness of governmental authority, both in the domain of royal control and in the areas of legislative (central and local) ability to function and power. With the diminished fortunes of regular szlachta, the struggle for power and the rather feeble, but still present attempts to reform the system took place within the changing alliances of powerful magnates and royal courts. From the time of John Casimir and his wife Marie Louise, who cared about the well-being of the Commonwealth, but were obsessively preoccupied with the issue of royal succession, the Polish–Lithuanian state was informally divided into a number of territorial domains, practically controlled by regional top feudal lords, inclined to pursue their private and familial interests in the first place. Janusz Radziwiłł, the most powerful magnate of Lithuania, is credited with being responsible for the first instance of the liberum veto act, which was used to break the deliberations of the sejm of 1652. This widely abused practice eventually led to a paralysis of most of significant legislative activity, and through their szlachta surrogates was used by foreign powers to prevent internal reform in the Commonwealth. John Casimir's poor relations with the magnates contributed to his initial alienation from the Commonwealth's nobility and armed forces in 1655 at the time of the Swedish Deluge. In 1658 the King, supported by the more patriotic faction of the szlachta, postulated a reform program, which included the introduction of majority voting rules in parliamentary assemblies. The proposal was supported by the Senate in 1658 and considered by the Sejm, which in 1659 established a committee for implementing new procedures, but the reforms soon became a victim of disagreements over the vivente rege and royal succession issues. Although during the sejm of 1661 John Casimir predicted and warned of partition of the Commonwealth by Russia, Brandenburg and Austria if unsettled successions cause significant interregnum periods, by that time the reform program had been defeated and the army remained unpaid. Hetman Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski was the central figure among the opposition responsible for the defeat of the royal couple's undertakings and attempted reforms. With his inspiration confederations of unpaid soldiers were established in 1661 in the Crown and in Lithuania. The army confederations lasted for two years, forced the parliament to come